


you shall love your crooked neighbour/with your crooked heart

by pentaghastly



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M, and you can't convince me otherwise, inquisitor literally worships the ground dorian walks on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-16
Updated: 2015-01-16
Packaged: 2018-03-07 20:17:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3181745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentaghastly/pseuds/pentaghastly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is cruel. It is falling down a flight of stairs, tumbling off of the highest peak of the Frostback Mountains. One moment he is grounded, secure, <em>whole</em>, and the next every single piece of him is wrapped up inside every single piece of Dorian, from the curl of his mustache to the glint in his eyes when he is moment away from a terrible joke to the gentle cadence of his laugh - not his fake laugh, the one he puts on for show, but the one when it is just the two of them whispering to each other like foolish children and their faces are so close that just a lean forward, just a hair, and their noses might touch and their lips might brush.</p><p>He falls, and when he falls he falls hard, and fast, and all at once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you shall love your crooked neighbour/with your crooked heart

> “Never let me lose the marvel  
>  of your statue-like eyes, or the accent  
>  the solitary rose of your breath  
>  places on my cheek at night.
> 
> I am afraid of being, on this shore,  
>  a branchless trunk, and what I most regret  
>  is having no flower, pulp, or clay  
>  for the worm of my despair.
> 
> If you are my hidden treasure,  
>  if you are my cross, my dampened pain,  
>  if I am a dog, and you alone my master,
> 
> never let me lose what I have gained,  
>  and adorn the branches of your river  
>  with leaves of my estranged Autumn.”  
>  \- Frederico Garcia Lorca

...

When he falls, he does not fall slowly.

It is, he thinks, appropriate, that the realization that he loves, he loves, he _loves_ , comes not as a gentle stream, as a steady crescendo, as a subtle climb - such a love is a luxury reserved for the blessed few, for the ones who are able to afford coy smiles and soft touches and lingering kisses under the cloak of twilight. This is not a thing that they can have, not a thing that he can give - it is the love that Dorian _deserves_ , and he spends each of his days after his revelation mourning the fact that such a life was robbed from them.

(And it would have been wonderful - he would have courted him properly, with flowers and poems and candlelight, and the mage would have been horribly indignant but he would have adored it, too, this much he knows. Perhaps someday they can do it over again.

Perhaps someday they can do it right).

But what they have...he falls, and when he falls he falls hard, and fast, and all at once.

One moment Dorian is there - Dorian Pavus, mage of Tevinter, and he is all pomp and dramatics and striking wit and intelligence and kindness and he is his ally, his friend - and he is rambling on about some new research that he has been doing, but his words are coming out far too fast and Trevelyan can hardly keep up, so instead he watches. Watches each of his moments, the precision in his steps, the confidence - not arrogance, never arrogance, despite what some may believe - in his speech, the tilt of his head up, up towards the sun.

Towards the sun, which filters through the window of his library alcove and threads it’s way through each strand of his hair like strands of spun gold, creates a glow of light about his head like a halo; it catches on the russet of his skin and he wonders what it might be like to reach out, just so that his hand was skimming the side of his face, to selfishly bask in the warmth of him for just a moment longer, just a moment, just as long as Dorian would have him.

The mage catches his stare, turns, tilts his head - he looks torn between scolding him for not listening and something else, something Trevelyan cannot begin to identify, is afraid to try to, and he -

Instead, he _smiles_.

It is cruel. It is falling down a flight of stairs, tumbling off of the highest peak of the Frostback Mountains. One moment he is grounded, secure, _whole_ , and the next every single piece of him is wrapped up inside every single piece of Dorian, from the curl of his mustache to the glint in his eyes when he is moment away from a terrible joke to the gentle cadence of his laugh - not his fake laugh, the one he puts on for show, but the one when it is just the two of them whispering to each other like foolish children and their faces are so close that just a lean forward, just a hair, and their noses might touch and their lips might brush.

One moment he is Dorian of House Pavus, mage of Tevinter, scholar, rebel, mage, ally, _friend_ , and the next he has become the earth and the moon and each of the stars in the sky. 

(He wonders, if he were to gather the pieces of Dorian and connect them together as he does with the stars in the astrariums, what it is that he might find. He wonders if the man will ever allow him to find out).

…

He loves - 

He loves -

He _loves_ him.

The knowledge follows the Inquisitor about like the plague.

It is...it is not _fair_. They learn one another in dimly-lit corners, behind locked doors and shuttered windows, learn their edges and their curves, learn the words that make them laugh and the touches that make them sigh, and it is wonderful, and it is beautiful, but it is not _enough_. He looks at Dorian and he sees the sun, and instead of showing the world his light he traps him in a world of darkness and secrets, of death and despair and the knowledge that each day they share with one another might be the last.

“You deserve better,” he tells him, repeatedly, insistently, so that the words might finally sink into his lover’s unbearably thick skull, nearly as stubborn as the Inquisitor himself - they’re quite the match, the two of them are, twin fires blazing just as bright.

“I deserve the _best_.” His voice is teasing but there is a question in his eyes, a furrow in his brow - he does not know, does not _know_ despite the bravado of his words, just how important he is, how he hangs each of the stars in place in the sky, how he keeps the Earth turning on it’s axis, how he speaks and the whole world stands at attention. He does not know, he does not _know_ , and the thought that Dorian could have gone through his whole life without ever being aware of the miracle behind his existence does nothing short of break Trevelyan into a million little pieces. “But perhaps, just to humor me, you might be a touch more specific?”

More specific. He could, certainly, with ease, but if he were to begin he is afraid he would say too much, that he would not know how to stop. Would he scare Dorian away? He deserves more, of course he does, Trevelyan knows, but at the same time he imagines a life without the man by his side, now that he knows the scrape of his moustache against his cheek and the drag of his fingernails across his back and the gasp of his breath beside his ear, and is not sure that he can live either way.

And then there it is, the smile, the one that hides just a sliver of fear, a ghost of doubt, and he wants to kiss him until he understands, until he _sees_. But this is a battle that must be fought with words, and although he is not an eloquent man, for Dorian he will try.

“You deserve...you deserve a _life_ , Dorian. You deserve a man who can hold you in his arms without the fear that he will be dead when the sun rises, who doesn’t ask you to risk yourself for him every day, who can put you before everything else because that is where you _belong_!” He thinks he can feel his hands shaking, but he can’t be sure - now that he has begun the words are spilling out of him faster than he can process them in his thoughts, and he hopes that he is saying the right thing, but he cannot look at the mage’s face to see as he cannot seem to focus his gaze long enough to try.

He stops, places a hand against the post of his bed, catches his breath - and _yes_ , that is his hand, fluttering like a leaf in the breeze, and he suspects the rest of him might be faring much the same.

“You deserve a place where you are safe. Happy. Where you can have children and a husband and...you deserve a _home_. And I…” he pauses - this is the part he was dreading, the part that keeps him awake at night, the part that causes his heart to stop dead in his chest. “ I want that too, want it with you and you alone, want it more than I could possibly tell you, but I am afraid, _so_ afraid, that -”

Another pause. He swallows, and it is like tar in his throat.

“I am afraid that I might fail you, and it is killing me.”

The world falls still, and he waits.

His eyes are trained firmly on the floor - he can see Dorian’s feet in the corner of his view, remarkably still, for once not pacing their way about the room as if trying to carve a path in the ground. He has stunned him to silence, to stillness, and feels strangely proud about such an achievement. So proud, in fact, that he does not notice the man in standing in front of him until he is already there, not quite touching, but close enough that he can feel his breath on his cheek, warm, inviting - and yet he still cannot bring himself to glance up.

A hand is grabbing his; it is soft, so remarkably soft considering it’s size and it’s years and the things that it has seen, the things that it has endured. He brushes his thumb across the surface of it’s back, over each faded scar, the ones which he has committed to memory, tries to make a picture out of the lines.

“Amatus.” The word is spoken tender, like hope, like a prayer, and that is when he finally allows his gaze to flicker upwards, to meet Dorian’s own, and he sees - he sees _everything_ , sees the answer to the questions he never knew he had needed and the words to all the songs he had never known had been written. He looks at him, at the man he loves, and he sees, he _sees_ -

“You are my home.”

_Yes._

He looks into Dorian’s eyes, and he sees.

...

They hold hands under the covers of his bed and Dorian’s are always like ice; he kisses each knuckle, each line of his palm, each ring on his finger, until they grow warm or until the mage laughs and insists his lips journey elsewhere - he obliges, helpless in the face of his love’s demands, and blazes a path from the bend of his elbow to the crook of his neck, traces a line like he is writing a poem in the velvet of his skin, drawing a map, connecting the stars until they stay together and the picture finally fits.

He does not know if it ever will. To be honest, he does not mind.

And he is afraid - every second he is afraid, every heartbeat that they spend without the other’s company, every time they are not at one another’s side; Trevelyan reaches out to brush a stray hair out of his eyes while he sleeps, marveling at how _young_ he looks, how the worry lines have faded, how he looks so...at peace.

He sighs, shifts in closer so that his face is burrowed into the other man’s chest, so that he can place a kiss there once, twice, before breathing him in, and the scent is rich and warm (mahogany, parchment, ink, the last embers of a dying fire, the turning pages of a fading book) and it is _Dorian_ \- he commits each subtle note, each nuance of it to memory. On the days when they are parted, when it has been so long that he cannot remember the touch of his lips, the curve of his smile, the patterns of the freckles that dot his shoulders, he will remember this, will breathe him in so deep that it will linger within him wherever he travels.

Dorian smiles - breathing even, still asleep, his the corner of his lips turns upwards so slightly, so faint one might not even know it were there at all; but he does, _oh_ , he does, and he kisses him there as well once, twice, three times, just for good measure.

He lays his head back down, hooks one arm over his back, and -

And he _sees_.

And this, _here_ , is where the picture starts to fit.

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this last night, but somehow it got deleted, so here it is again!
> 
> Dorian is like...my favourite character of all time, so to be honest I was really nervous to write something involving him because I really wanted to do him (and their beautiful relationship) justice. Any comments/critique you have would be GREATLY appreciated, and kudos are always a treat xx


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